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AbstractThis study provides one of the first causal estimates of both the personal and partisan incumbency advantages. Using data on six local elections taking place during the last 20 years in 278 municipalities in Portugal, it relies on a reform introducing mayoral term limits as a natural experiment that creates exogenous variation on the incumbency status of officeholders while holding the incumbency status of the party constant. A new methodology combining two quasi‐experimental methods, the regression discontinuity and the difference‐in‐discontinuities designs, allows for a credible estimation of the independent personal and partisan returns to incumbency. Results causally identify the personal effect as the driver of the incumbency advantage.

This study investigates the impact of electing a majority in a municipality's legislative body on different items of the local current and capital accounts. Inference is based on a RDD approach and a dataset containing electoral and financial information for a sample of 278 homogeneous municipalities over 32 years. Results provide evidence of a significant causal impact of treatment on the most relevant items of the current and capital revenue and expenditure accounts. In particular, municipalities ruled by a legislative majority raise more revenues through current and capital transfers, but also have higher expenditures with personnel and investment goods. ; Revised Version February 2017

This study relies on a recent reform introducing gubernatorial term limits at the Portuguese local level to explore how an exogenous variation in eligibility for re-election affects local fiscal policy choices. Relying on electoral and fiscal outcomes for the past three complete electoral terms and a quasi-experimental diff-in-diff approach, the empirical analysis estimates how fiscal policy differs on average between re-eligible and term-limited incumbents. Results indicate that rather than engaging in opportunistic behavior, lame ducks pursue more conservative fiscal policies. Term limited officeholders choose lower property tax rates and reduced levels of current expenditure relative to re-eligible incumbents. Heterogeneous effects further suggest that ineligible mayors behave more truthfully and do not engage in political business cycles, challenging previous results in the literature.

This paper analyzes the consequences of an electoral reform introducing mayoral term limits at the municipal level in Portugal. Relying on a difference-in-difference methodology and a novel method that accounts for anticipatory effects of reforms, this study explores variation between and within municipalities to capture the economic and political consequences of limiting the number of consecutive mayoral terms. In contrast to the usual lame duck effect in the literature, I find that term limited mayors decrease current expenditure and reduce both user charges and tax rates. Lame ducks send positive fiscal signals possibly in an attempt to maximize the electoral perspectives and re-election probability of their party in the coming elections. Still, political turnover significantly increases as a result of the electoral reform.

This study relies on a constitutional reform introducing term limits at the local elections level in Portugal as a natural experiment to estimate incumbency advantage in mayoral elections. It stresses the distinction between partisan and personal incumbency advantage using data on six local elections in 278 homogenous municipalities from 1993 to 2013. The analysis is based on two quasi-experimental methods, the RD and diff-in-disc designs, that allow for credible inference upon the source and magnitude of the incumbency advantage. Main contributions include one of the first estimates of partisan incumbency advantage in the literature and the use of a novel method in its estimation. Results show that whilst the returns to incumbency accruing to the candidate are positive and significant, there is no evidence of a significant partisan incumbency advantage. In addition, robustness test point to a potential role of term limits in causing political turnover.

The share of women in political offices has increased considerably over the past few decades in almost every country in the world. Does this matter for policy outcomes? This is the first paper to provide a literature review on the substantive effects of female representation on policies. In developing countries, the increase in female political representation has caused a better provision of public goods, especially with regard to education and health. In developed countries, higher female representation has not affected public policies as measured by spending patterns. However, more recent evidence shows that female representation has induced changes in parliamentary deliberations and specific policy choices (e.g. more public child care) that may not be reflected in the observable composition of public spending. Finally, higher female representation has improved institutional quality by reducing corruption and rent-extraction by those in power.

The share of women in political offices has increased considerably over the past few decades in almost every country in the world. Does this matter for policy outcomes? This is the first paper to provide a literature review on the substantive effects of female representation on policies. In developing countries, the increase in female political representation has caused a better provision of public goods, especially with regard to education and health. In developed countries, higher female representation has not affected public policies as measured by spending patterns. However, more recent evidence shows that female representation has induced changes in parliamentary deliberations and specific policy choices (e.g. more public child care) that may not be reflected in the observable composition of public spending. Finally, higher female representation has improved institutional quality by reducing corruption and rent-extraction by those in power.

We study the local favoritism of appointed German state ministers. Matching hand-collected data on ministers' place of residence to a sample of more than 8,000 west German municipalities during the period 1994–2013, we find that the home municipality of a state minister experiences higher employment growth than control municipalities. Given the institutional context, this effect is ostensibly due to apolitical favoritism (home bias) rather than electoral considerations. We conclude that favoritism may lead to a distortion in the allocation of public resources even in contexts with strong political institutions.